


The War of the Hedgerows

by Pandora (paperclipbutterfly)



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zootopia Fusion, F/M, Inspired by Real Events, Judy's Got a Gun, Minor Character Death, Snipers, Soldiers, Violence, War, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2018-11-10 19:26:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11133186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperclipbutterfly/pseuds/Pandora
Summary: In an alternate reality where Dawn Bellwether’s ambitions strike 75 years earlier, she goes about raising her economically devastated country to power and bringing the rest of the world into her flock. She sets her sights on Zootopia as the surrounding countries fall to her armies like fainting goats, but what she doesn't count on is a resilient bunny, a sly fox, and the many other mammals who will fight to the bitter end to ensure that her plans do not succeed.Inspired by events from World War I, World War II, and the real life story of Lyudmila Pavlichenko.Zootopia is owned by Disney, I don't own their characters, just having some fun, yak yak yak... you get it. This story is absolute trash, but I hope you enjoy anyway. Thanks for reading.





	1. Tending the Flock

Dawn Bellwether easily won the appointment as Furrer of the Ovine Republic amidst a grand display of political showmanship. It was a landslide victory for her previously unknown party, and her constituents were ecstatic that they at last had a dynamic leader to bring them out of the dark times. The stagnant economy had been strangling the country for years and the hardworking mammals were hungry, unemployed, and disenchanted with their government--ready for a change. It didn’t matter what the change was. Any change at all would do.

Her lofty words and grand ambitions for a vast domain united under her banner promised them all a brighter future that they would do anything-- _anything_ \--to achieve. Overnight the struggling capital city of Baalin was bustling with excited preparation, draped in stark white and gray flags adorned with the symbol of Bellwether’s party: a herder’s crook crossed with a sword. The elated mammals chanted “Serenity in the fold!” and danced in the streets.

Slowly and deliberately, the Furrer started to become involved in the radio and news outlets, issuing short but constant inspirational messages on paper and in voice. She suggested books to read and radio programs to listen to that would brighten their spirits and speak to their inner peace of mind. She reminded them how good citizens acted: loyal, diligent, obedient. It was a good mammal’s responsibility to his country and his leader, she advised, to report errant behavior immediately. Defend the herd. Root out dissent.

She spoke out passionately against the “savage” predators, and blamed them for the economic turn that the country experienced. The Furrer slowly began to curtail their rights, removing their freedom to attend school, to own businesses, to travel… to breed. The hooved ungulates were the master species and in their image they would remake the world. The Furrer reminded her citizens that to build a beautiful garden, one must first till the soil and remove the weeds. To build a perfect empire, imperfect species must be removed.

And remove them, she did. Muzzled and collared and carted away, until not a single predator remained in Baalin. Where they went, no one exactly knew, nor did they care. The wolves had been routed from the flock. The Ovine Republic set its eyes on bringing the rest of the world into its fold.

Dawn Bellwether put her citizens to work in her newly ordered country. They built new roads and hangars and research facilities. They tested the properties of metals and chemicals and flowers. They sewed uniforms and crafted helmets and boots. They assembled guns.

The Furrer made an army out of her flock.

Treaties were signed with Mouselini and Saolin, and the quick annexation of the Rhinoland caught all the world’s attention. The Ovines started spreading across the continent of Animalia with a speed that their species was not well known for. And not far away, just past the vast and cold rabbit-inhabited lands of Warrenton and Bunnyburrow, the Furrer set her sights on the dazzling metropolis that she was certain would become the crown jewel in her empire:

Zootopia.


	2. A Tactical Error

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fact: A bunny's ire is a thing to be reckoned with.

Perhaps their greatest tactical error was bombing Zootopia Academy. It was only collateral damage in the grand scheme of things, but destroying it brought her terrible wrath down upon them. Whoever thought that a bunny’s ire was a thing to be reckoned with?

Judy Hopps attended the vigil for the students and teachers who were lost in the bombing. Her favorite teacher, Professor Otterton, was missing and presumed dead. His widow and their children came to the memorial site in tears to leave flowers by his photograph.

In that moment, a fire was lit that burned in her so hot and so bright that she thought she might be consumed if she did not act on it. It was decided. They destroyed a thing that Judy loved and so she resolved that she would respond in kind.

She had packed the few belongings that she felt she would need in only a few minutes, but it took her two full days to bid farewell to each of the 1000+ members of the Hopps clan. Their goodbyes were certainly heartfelt, but also abbreviated; they reminded her that they would probably be seeing her again soon enough. After all, who in their right mind would put a rabbit on the battlefield?

The recruiting office seemed to be similarly minded about the idea, as well.

“A sniper?” the great cape buffalo repeated incredulously at the tiny gray bunny that stood in front of the recruiter’s desk. After having her request refused twice (patiently, kindly, and imploringly) by the overworked cheetah on duty, Colonel Bogo had been summoned.

“That’s right,” she said haughtily.

“What would a rabbit know about sniping?”

“Plenty of guns on a farm, sir,” she retorted. “I am well versed in shooting technique and etiquette, gun maintenance and, I might add, I am a very good shot.”

“Look, Miss…” The buffalo glanced at the application on his clipboard briefly. “Hopps. I admire your gumption, but a position as a sniper is not meant for, ah… for mammals like you.” He gestured generally to all of her. “Now, if you want to help the war effort what you really should do is work in a factory or a hospital. I can assign you to the medical clinic as a nurse…”

“I’m not here to be a nurse.” Judy stamped her foot testily. “I’m here to be a sniper. I am more than qualified for the position I’m requesting, and I’m prepared to prove it to you if I must.”

“Problem, Colonel Bogo?”

A red fox sauntered up to the table, a half-lidded and almost bored expression on his face. He raised a paw to his forehead in a half-assed salute, and let it drop almost immediately back into his pocket. Judy’s nose twitched; she could tell that this was not a mammal that she would get along with.

“Lieutenant Wilde,” Colonel Bogo said with a slight tone of appreciation, “maybe you can explain to Miss Hopps here why the battlefield would be a poor place to station a capable rabbit such as herself.”

Lieutenant Wilde stared down his muzzle at her with all the air of a teacher reprimanding a petulant student. “Should I mention first the survival rate measured in seconds for mammals smaller than a badger? Or maybe the fact that when a mammal her size is shot there typically isn’t anything left to scrape together to send back to her family?”

The blush that spread into her ears felt like a flame. “Now listen here…”

 _BANG!_ The fox slammed his paw suddenly up into the underside of the rickety table. While Judy’s feet didn’t leave the floor (sheer force of will; it felt like her heart had jumped up into her throat), her ears shot straight into the air as she flinched at the shock of the sudden earsplitting sound. When she looked back at the piercing green eyes of the lieutenant, she was staring down the “barrel” of the other gun-shaped paw that was pointing at her forehead.

“You’re dead, sweetheart.” Lieutenant Wilde replaced his paws back into his pockets. “It happens just that quickly.”

“Thank you for proving my point, Lieutenant,” Colonel Bogo said, and crossed his arms across his barrel chest as though that would be the end of the discussion.

It wasn’t.

Judy folded her arms also in outright defiance and planted her feet; she would not be moved. “Putting me in a factory is a waste of my skills. I’m not afraid of dying, and I’m not leaving this office until you agree to make me a sniper.”

The fox chuckled. “A sniper? Really?” He looked her up and down, his ears turning slightly toward her in interest. He cocked his head to the side and asked, “How’s your aim?”

“Better than yours,” Judy said stiffly. She wanted to wipe that half smile off his face.

Lieutenant Wilde chuckled again. “ _Everyone’s_ aim is better than mine, sweetheart. That doesn’t make you special. So tell me: what _does_ make you special?”

In one fluid movement, Judy unslung the satchel from her back and dumped the contents of the open front pocket onto the floor. Medals, awards, accolades showered down and clattered here and there for a short eternity. All of them civilian sharpshooter awards of the highest honors.

Lieutenant Wilde’s eyes widened and he gave a low whistle. “Really.” The half-smile was replaced with a much wider one, which Judy wasn’t entirely certain was a good thing. “You know what Colonel? If Miss Hopps wants to get her paws dirty, who are we to refuse her? Let’s see what she’s made of. Maybe it’ll be stronger stuff than rabbit fuzz.” He gave a more acceptable salute to his superior officer as he added, “By your leave, of course, Colonel Bogo, sir.”

Colonel Bogo squinted his eyes as he rubbed the bridge of his snout in irritation. “Are there even any available rifles suited to a mammal her size?”

“She can use The Duke’s,” Lieutenant Wilde said, turning to walk to the back of the recruiting tent. “He won’t be needing it anymore.”

“Oh for pity’s sake… when did that happen?” the buffalo demanded after the lieutenant’s retreating figure.

“Last engagement. Thought he would pull through, but no dice. At least there was a body to send home to the wife.” Lieutenant Wilde paused, and glanced back over his shoulder at Judy. “You’re with me, Carrots.”

Judy looked up at Colonel Bogo for confirmation, and he jerked his head in the fox’s direction. She threw (most of) the scattered awards back into her bag and hurried to follow behind him. She was of two minds about her next words. On the one paw, she wanted to thank him for tipping the scales in her favor, for ensuring that she’d have the task which her soul cried out to perform more than anything. On the other paw…

“You’re going to want to refrain from calling me ‘Carrots,’” she said with just a hint of bitterness as she came up beside him. They came out the back of the recruiting office to a scene of organized bustle, soldiers lifting and packing and loading crates and barrels and packs into and out of trucks and tents.

“I very much doubt that,” Lieutenant Wilde said with a little lilting drawl that sounded both amused and smug at the same time. “Consider it a compliment. There are worse things I could think to call a bunny as dumb as you.” He gave her an appraising look out of the corner of his eye as her ears again shot up and flushed a deep red. “Those ears are going to be a problem. We’ll start there in the morning.”

Judy’s throat felt like it had been scorched when she asked, “‘We’?”

“Yes, ‘we,’” he repeated dryly. “I think I just mentioned that my former partner was recently killed in the line of duty. I need a sniper; you need a spotter. That makes us ‘we.’ Here we are.”

He threw aside the flap of a small barracks tent and motioned with his head for her to enter. It was meant to house maybe half a dozen medium sized mammals; there were a couple of wolves and a bobcat lying about in the cots already. They all gave Judy surprised and sneering looks as she walked in with Lieutenant Wilde following behind her. He dropped the flap back down and indicated the cot that was closest to the entrance.

“This one was The Duke’s,” he said. “I’d suggest getting acquainted with his rifle tonight; it’ll probably still be a bit big for you, but I’m inclined to think that won't deter you any.”

“No, it sure won’t,” Judy agreed, and placed a paw tenderly on the rifle that was leaning against the small folding chair beside the bed.

 _Nice to meet you, comrade._ This weapon would become her new best friend. She would treat him well, and in return he’d be her ally in destroying the mammals that were overrunning the land and taking away all the beautiful things that she loved about it. He’d be the power in her paws that she needed, and together they would rend the enemy forces asunder one Ovine at a time.

And if the fox wanted to bear witness to their dances with death, then so be it.

“Settle in,” Lieutenant Wilde said, intruding rudely on her only slightly gruesome reverie. “Dinner is at eighteen hundred. Hell begins tomorrow.”

He gave her an ironic bow and turned to head back out of the tent when Judy blurted out, “Why did you defend my request?” She felt her ears burning hot again as she added, “If I’m such a dumb bunny and I’m just going to get myself killed, then why are you choosing to put yourself beside me?”

“I have the privileged luxury of choosing my partner, and up until now I can safely say that my options have been lacking. You…” he looked away out of the tent opening as he gripped the flap more tightly. “You are fearless. It’s in your eyes. You look like you might just be as crazy as I am. In fact, I’m counting on it. You and me, Carrots… we’re going to take so many Ovines down, it’s going to be preposterous.” He turned back to her with those green eyes, no longer bored and smug but bright with passion. “How does that strike you?”

Judy pulled back her lips into the fiercest smile that Lieutenant Wilde had ever seen. On a prey mammal.

“That strikes me just fine.” She turned back to the rifle and hoisted it up in her paws, getting a feel for its weight and its balance. They were about to be very intimately acquainted, and Judy could not wait to get started. The fox could watch if he pleased; perhaps she wouldn’t mind his company after all. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“Nick,” the fox said, and resumed his half smile. “Welcome to the war, Carrots. Let’s make the enemy regret our meeting.”

 _Yes,_ Judy thought as he left, and put the rifle sight up to her eye. _Let’s._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, now they've gone and done it. Great going, Furrer Bellwether. I sure hope you like the taste of humiliation... that's the only dish these two intend to serve you.
> 
> Continuing to be trash... still not sorry about it. :) Thank you for reading.


	3. For Shots and Giggles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get it? ;) For _shots_ and giggles? *snerk*
> 
> Oh, come on! That's funny right there. XD

“Again.”

Nick hadn’t been joking when he called his training regimen for her ‘Hell.’ Judy actually preferred the back-breaking physical labor of basic training to the specialized sessions that she had with her red fox superior officer after lunch each day. It wasn’t so much the knowledge that he imparted, as a lot of it was things that she already knew something about: how to gauge variables like wind resistance, wind direction and speed, ballistics, air density, humidity, barometric pressure, the math and physics of gravity and muzzle velocity. She was also already very certain of her abilities. The innate talent was there, and with it a commensurate degree of skill. But the finesse that would keep her alive while allowing her to obliterate her targets still needed to be honed. Still needed to be taught. And while Lieutenant Wilde was an excellent teacher, he most certainly wasn’t a kind one.

And Judy was an extraordinarily impudent student.

“That one was a perfect bullseye!” Judy snapped peevishly, tearing her eye away from the rifle sight as she looked up at Nick from her prone position. He was staring down his muzzle at her, eyes narrowed from fatigue and irritation.

The firing range target was set at a respectable 800 yards away, and at this point looked like a piece of Swiss cheese from the number of rounds that had been blown through it. They’d been at it for hours, and it was starting to wear on them both, but not a single shot that she took was yet considered acceptable to him.

“Congratulations on your laudable accomplishment,” he said dryly. He pinched the bridge of his snout through eyes screwed shut. “You still aren’t _listening_ to me, which I find insulting given how big your ears are.”

“Were you even looking at the same mark I was?” She ejected the spent shell casing roughly and with clear exasperation. “Your calls were way off…”

“My calls put the bullet exactly where it needs to be, Carrots. I can’t do that if my _partner_ keeps second-guessing every direction I give her.”

Her ears shot up, eyes flashing fiercely. “I’m not just a stand in for your impotent trigger finger. I’m capable of making necessary adjustments, too.”

Nick sighed wearily. “That’s not the point.” He put the scope back to his eye as he turned his head to look down range. “Put those ears back and reset for a new target.”

With an impatient exhale, Judy reloaded the bolt-action rifle, took a deep breath to temper her temper, and put her ears down as her eye went back up to the sight. “Shooter ready.”

“By eye, go to bravo three.”

 _Third section from the left._ Judy shifted to the left, aiming the muzzle toward the right of the field now. “Contact.”

“Range nine five two.”

She pulled back slightly, and adjusted the sight for a further distance mark. _Target another hundred and fifty yards out…_ “Contact.”

“Go immediately to nine o’clock of white birch tree.”

 _There you are._ He chose a big buck shaped board manufactured by Deers  & Roebuck, the target circles radiating out from the center of its chest cavity, with a smaller target over the face and the bullseye a tiny red spot right in the dead center of the forehead. Judy immediately started adjusting for a headshot on that bullseye. “On target. Buck outline, patch of dark brown dirt beneath target, white clover to the right.”

“Confirmed target. Check your parallax and mil. Prepare to engage.”

Judy crisped up her scope, relaxed her neck and slowed her breathing, keeping her head perfectly still to ensure that the crosshairs of her sight wouldn’t move and throw off her shot.

“Two point oh one mil,” she murmured, barely taking breath, her set up complete and ready for another kill shot. She was preparing to go through the final firing sequence when…

“Drop point zero one three mil. Confirm direction.”

 _Back flippin’ son of a…_ Judy clenched her teeth, absolutely certain now that he was screwing with her. Making last second adjustments like this that would throw her off the shot that she was certain would strike within the target area. She’d been ignoring them, confident that her calculations were bang on. This time, though, she decided to see where the command would lead.

When she did Judy almost burst out laughing, but swallowed it quickly. She didn’t want to give Lieutenant Wilde the satisfaction. She simply said, “Confirmed,” and began prepping the firing sequence again. Breath in, and out… paw tensed to the trigger… “Ready.”

“Wind call left point four,” was his immediate response. “Fire.”

Judy squeezed the trigger, felt the exhilaration of the bullet leaving the gun, braced for the recoil, and then resumed normal breathing. She didn’t have to look back through her scope to confirm what she knew was the outcome of her perfectly positioned shot.

Lieutenant Wilde whooped aloud gleefully to see a perfect circle of light in the target right in the crotch of the buck silhouette.

“Now _that’s_ what I’m talking about!” He continued to chuckle as he looked down at her, his eyes twinkling merrily. “See? Now wasn’t that more fun than a crumby old bullseye?”

Judy expelled the spent casing again with a smirk up at him. “If we were on the battlefield right now, you’d be dead.”

Nick winked at her. “Ah, but since we aren’t, I will continue to enjoy my small victory, thank you.”

The bunny gulped as a bright flush flooded her ears, even though they stayed flat against her back. “‘Victory’?”

“That’s right.” Nick sat heavily beside her, locked his elbows and leaned back against his arms. “Need you to trust my calls, Carrots. I told you before… I intend to do crazy things out there. Unorthodox things, not in the handbook. Risky things that will get results, but are still risky, nevertheless.” He gave her a devious half smile as he glanced her way out of the corner of his eye. “Hilarious things that our enemies will find humiliating. I can’t do that if you’re not on board.”

Judy sat up, leaning against the rifle in her paws now set butt-end against the ground, and gave him a stern look. “War isn’t supposed to be fun, Nick.”

“Our life expectancy got a lot shorter just doing this job, sweetheart,” he reminded her with another smug glance. “I intend to laugh it up until they put me in the ground.”

“I’m not sacrificing a kill shot for a giggle out there,” she warned him.

“I’ll never ask you to do that.” He looked at her straight on then, green eyes soft and sincere locked firmly with hers. “We’re a team. Target prioritization, planning, position selection… all of these things need input from both of us. You’re worthless to me if you blindly follow and can’t think on your feet. But I won’t be any good to you either if you don’t trust me.”

Judy looked up at the muzzle of her rifle, her comrade in this fight against a fascist and tyrannical ruler bent on remaking the world in an image no mammal should ever have the misfortune of gazing upon. She trusted him to listen to her, to put the bullet exactly where she wanted it to go. To add more variables to those fine turned calculations between them for a lark didn’t seem either prudent or wise. In fact, it seemed downright foolhardy.

But this last shot… Nick had instructed her perfectly how to adjust from the headshot that she had already planned to his much less conventional target without her telling him where she had aimed first. He knew just where the path of the bullet would be… without any words. And that… that was a connection too valuable—too indispensable—not to put faith in.

“Understood. Sir.” She gave him a mock salute with a smile. With a grunt Judy pulled herself to her feet using the rifle to support her very numb legs and aching back for a moment before she offered her paw to the fox still sitting beside her. “Partner.”

Nick grinned up at her with a toothy smile. “Congratulations, Carrots. You’ve officially survived the journey through Hell.” He accepted her outstretched paw and pulled himself up to his feet. “I can’t wait to show you what’s waiting on the other side. You’re just gonna _love_ it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Training's over, bunny dearest... to the battlefield with you! I hope you're ready, Furrer Bellwether... you'll rue the day you thought you could overrun the world with your fascist regime. In fact... you should probably start ruing. These two are bringing Hell with them to the front.


	4. The Broken Seal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't be alarmed. There's always a bit of blood the first time.
> 
> Double entendre? You bet!

With training now considered complete, it wasn’t long before the fox and bunny sharpshooting team received their first deployment.

Nick promised no theatrics for the first time. The battlefield was a very different place from the firing range, after all, and it was crucial that they reinforce the relationship that they’d recently established. To that end, their first mission would be to take out a singular target, one that was taking pot shots at their comrades on the front.

They’d be hunting a sniper serving the other side. And to snipe an enemy sniper was no easy feat, which Nick was only too happy to remind Judy of.

“No headshots.”

She snapped her head up from the rifle in her paws she was meticulously cleaning and oiling at the sharp admonition that came from the fox sitting directly across from her. Though the canvased truck they were driving to the field in was rambling along at a vigorous pace, they were still at least an hour out. As Nick had been sitting with eyes closed, arms neatly folded, and his head resting on his chest, Judy was sure that he’d been asleep most of the trip. But that was not the voice of a mammal that had been dozing.

He cracked one eye open at her, to which she gave a loud exhale through pursed lips and went back to cleaning the lens of the rifle scope. “Pssh… says the mammal who took particular delight in having me aim for the fuzzy dangling bits of targets.”

There were more than a few pained groans from around the cabin as multiple of their comrades cringed and crossed their legs.

Nick smirked and opened his other eye, now looking much sterner than the half smile suggested. “We’re not on the range anymore, Carrots. And this isn’t some grunt on the field we’re taking out.” He started reciting stats from the mission orders pointedly. “Simon Gunther, species dik-dik, age twenty-seven, and just as good a shot as you but with more experience in the field at this point, also. He’s had eleven confirmed kills on our troops. In a _week._ No one ever sees him coming, because he damn near disappears when he turns sideways.” Judy stopped spoiling her firearm and put her ears up at full attention to the lieutenant. “When we’ve got another like us out there to put out of commission, it needs to be by the book. One and done.”

“My record is particularly stellar with small targets, I’ll remind you,” Judy said, more a reassurance to herself than to him.

Her stomach started churning at a fact that she’d been busy pushing from her mind since their trip to the front began: she was expected to find and eliminate another mammal. _She_ was. With her own paw on the trigger. And he, her target, was expected to do the same to her.

“Small targets that aren’t moving,” Nick corrected her, replacing her anxiety with irritation. “You’re three out of five on the moving ones, which admittedly is better than most but still not odds I’m willing to gamble on with a guy who has the training and the gun to take us out. The only advantage you have on him is that you’re actually a smaller target than he is… but honestly, not by very much. You’re much more likely to miss completely and give our position away if you insist on aiming for a tiny bobbing ball on a stick.” He closed his eyes again. “So, no headshots. Are we clear?”

Judy huffed and went back to focusing on her comrade in her arms. “As crystal. Sir.”

“Good.”

She studied the lieutenant then, casting hard, searching, penetrating looks over him. He seemed a walking contradiction, at the same time a fun-loving joker and a brutally precise and passionate soldier. How did these two sides coexist within him?

Judy turned to watch the bleak scenery pass by. The battlefield would be before them soon enough. She thought it would do her good to remember what land without war looked like before her sight was filled with crimson and brown and gray.

*****

Their convoy was one of two descending on the area surrounding the town of Sevastopaw, a strategic point on the eastern front that the Allied Mammal forces needed to hold to ensure that their troops maintained an open supply line to the recently secured country of Ewekrain. Losing this territory would be devastating, and so more and more troops were being sent in. The Ovine forces, likewise, were devoting additional soldiers and tanks to the area, their goal clearly to strangle their enemy’s supply routes and begin a decisive rout.

Nick and Judy’s mission was small within the Alliance war machine, but it was critical, nevertheless. An enemy sniper out in the field not only resulted in crucial losses that had recently included high ranking officers, it was also a morale sink for the troops.

They would find this phantom target and take him out, no matter what, for the good of their fellow soldiers. It was as simple as that.

In theory.

In actuality, it was a mission dipped in nightmare fuel.

They had barely begun digging and reinforcing the trenches for the forward line when the Ovine bombers started flying in, dropping their explosive payload helter skelter along their path, hollowing out enormous craters in the land where mammals once stood.

Instinct kicked in before training had a chance to check her actions, and Judy bolted back and forth along the line, turning on a dime twice as the dirt exploded in front of her. Nick, her gun, her mission went missing from her mind, replaced only by the screaming voice that cried out to her to run, to survive.

The last shell of the aerial attack landed so close she was thrown completely off her feet, hit the ground with a bounce and roll, her ears ringing with the swan song of a dying frequency that she would never hear again. When she picked her head up she was choking on the dust now hanging in the air, the muffled voices of the living shouting orders around her as she surveyed the bodies—the bits and pieces—of the dead.

_“Judy!”_

She snapped out of her gaping gaze—how long she’d spent with her eyes trained on her fallen comrades it was impossible to say—and came back to the commotion of the skirmish still in progress as Nick grasped her shoulders between his paws, his wide eyes roving over every inch of her. A jagged gash just above his right eye was trickling blood down the side of his head.

 _“Nick… your face…”_ Impossible to tell if Judy spoke the words out loud, she couldn’t hear herself through the ringing and the orders being shouted around them. She reached up a paw toward his eye, a tender kind of caress, a knee jerk reaction at the sight of a friend wounded.

The bunker beside them burst, showering soil and debris all over them. They both recoiled away from the sound and turned to stare through the yawning gully that was now formed in it and the tank that was barreling over the hill ahead and straight toward them.

A hard thump against her chest made Judy look down. Her rifle—her comrade—had been returned to her capable paws. She looked up into Nick’s fierce green eyes and pressed her lips together. There were no words spoken; only a nod.

They went to work.

Judy threw herself into the prone position in the opening that had been blown in the trench as Nick peered out through his scope just beside and above her. Shells were spattering into the walls around them. The Ovine forces crested the ridge, walking with confidence around their tank and spraying rounds at the Allied soldiers running toward them. Down, down, down their comrades fell to the shells of the armored tank and the shots from the guns.

There was a sharp flick against her ear and Judy jerked her head off from her sight to see three shiny, sharp bullets splayed in the fox’s paw like a hand of cards. Armor-piercing rounds.

Another cascade of dust fell over them as Judy snatched her new ammunition from the lieutenant and loaded her rifle. She put the tank in her sights as she yelled, “Shooter ready!” over the pandemonium.

“Range seven nine six and closing, Carrots,” Nick said tersely, surveying their target quickly. “All those bullets need to hit the same place.”

“Confirmed.” Breath in, and out… paw tensed to the trigger… “Ready.”

“… I trust you.”

A knot in her throat, her finger frozen as the world on the other side of the scope lurched. If she’d fired, she would have wasted the shot. “ _What?_ ”

“Range seven eight two, Carrots,” he said calmly, updating the distance between them and the tank now. “Put your shots where they need to go. Fire at will.”

 _Fire at… will?_ Something close to freedom in the highly regimented order of her life as a soldier had just been bestowed upon her. The tethers, the reins removed. Her heart leapt as the exhilaration coursed through her veins.

Eye back to the sight, trained on the tiny window at the front of the tank, breath in and out, the world in turmoil again still as a stone. _FIRE ONE._

A spiderweb crack in the armored glass. Breath in, and out. _FIRE TWO._

The glass shattered, and the tank began to slow its advance. Breath in, and out. _FIRE THREE._

The last round was squeezed off before the wall just a few yards down from Nick blew to bits. The tank spun around and around in circles, and then eventually careened off to the left side of the battlefield, running over its own troops as the gunner inside was killed and the armored vehicle was left to wander without a driver.

Allied soldiers ran forward into the fray of confusion that followed. The explosion that had decimated the bunker put soldiers back down into the trench, bodies torn apart and streaming blood. Wherever Nick had gone to, Judy couldn’t be certain, but in her brain his words were echoing loud and clear: “Fire at will.” She intended to obey that command until she was ordered otherwise, or she joined her fellow fallen soldiers on the ground. Whichever came first.

Judy followed the path of the tank through her sight as it roved across the field with every intention of laying low any who were fortunate enough to get out of its way. A dozen wool-covered heads passed through the scope of her rifle, but her paw on the trigger of her gun remained only at the ready. Try as she might, there was no squeezing her finger to fire.

She’d made it all the way to the tree line when he popped out from the drab woody background like a sculpted relief. Rifle to his face, surveying the battlefield just like she was, the dik-dik sniper named Simon Gunther was on the prowl to find a new target for his kill record.

He looked so young. _He_ is _young_ , Judy reminded herself. Twenty-seven and already a trained killer, an accomplished killer. Like she was about to become. He was her objective, and she had him in her crosshairs. Why was her paw seizing up? Why did her gun suddenly weigh so much? Why was moisture pooling at the corners of her eyes?

Taking out the tank was easy; it had no face.

While she couldn’t seem pull the trigger through these thoughts, no such internal deliberation was stopping him. She watched as he fired, jerking back from the recoil of the rifle in his hooves, and…

“HRRK!”

A torrent of blood splattered across her face from the right of her. She turned just in time to watch the wolf soldier that had been firing over the wall just beside her stagger back, a cavernous red hole in his chest where his heart should have been. He gurgled and gasped as he hit the back of the trench and slid down into the dirt. He locked his wide terrified eyes on hers and stared into and through her until he took his last shuddering breath.

His name was Wolfard, and he was even younger than she was, fresh out of high school. He had a nectar-sweet voice and told such vivid stories over dinner. He could paint a picture with that voice, every word a brushstroke, every laugh a new color, every intonation another dramatic embellishment. She just watched him die, and she suddenly couldn’t remember a single one of his stories, like he’d taken them all with him. She’d never hear him tell another one again.

And the last thing he ever saw was the face of a comrade that could have saved him and didn’t.

A guttural snarl rose in her throat as she put her rifle back to her eye. The enemy was before her and the command in her ears sang out her new truth.

_Fire at will._

*****

It was quiet at last. But it would be quiet considering that most of the mammals around them were no longer capable of making any sounds.

When Lieutenant Wilde found his partner again, he at first thought that she’d left the world along with the rest of the soldiers in the trench. Blood all down half of her face, ears drooped to either side, violet eyes blank and staring straight ahead. Judy’s rifle was cradled in her arms, like she was holding a child. He knelt beside her and his heart leapt as she blinked and turned to face him.

“Hey,” he said softly, and pointed at the splash of red on the side of her head. “Any of that yours?” Judy didn’t answer, but turned her eyes back past him, across the trench. Nick followed her gaze to the vacant eyed corpse of Private Wolford. He sighed. “Oh. I see.”

“Got Gunther.”

Nick snapped his head back around. “You what?”

“One and done.” She held up his scope to him. “Tree line to the left, huge pine, across from the tank.”

Nick took the scope from her wordlessly, followed her directions to the tree line and the enormous towering pine tree to find the slumped body of what he could only surmise was their objective. It was difficult to tell considering that Simon Gunther no longer had half his face to identify him by.

The lieutenant turned his lips down into a scowl. He lowered the scope and looked at her with a fire in his eyes that was only slightly offset by annoyance. “Dumb bunny. _Dumb_. What did I tell you? What did I explicitly say _not_ to do?”

Judy blinked twice and gave him a half shrug with an accompanying playful half smile following. Expecting an argument, he was caught completely off guard by her almost sheepish reaction and he let out a breathy laugh against his better judgment. He gazed back through his scope at the body of their annihilated sniper target. “God _damn_ , what a beautiful shot, though.”

When he looked back to her again, she was grinning at him with a stupid wide smile. Nick deepened his scowl even further and nudged against her shoulder with his elbow as he turned back to view the battlefield landscape. “Shut up.”

“You love it,” Judy said impishly, tipping her rifle up into an embrace and leaning her head against it.

“Do I love it?” he wondered aloud, maybe half to himself as well as to her. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

It took a great deal of willpower to keep her ears down at those words that seemed to drip with something that almost approached longing. There was an ache in them, and while Judy couldn’t be certain of it, she thought it sounded like Nick wished that he was the one pulling the trigger instead of her.

“Took out the objective _and_ a tank for good measure. Not a bad day’s work, huh, Carrots?” He tousled her ears gently, an action that she normally would have jerked away from but in this moment was welcome physical contact. A shiver went down her spine at the sensation of his paw pads in the fur atop her head. He drew it back and flashed her a toothy grin, the kind of grin that belonged in a theater of war. “The seal is broken. Hard part’s over. Now the fun begins.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Already Judy's making a name for herself. Furrer Bellwether is gonna be pissed when they tell her that one of her tanks was destroyed by a rifle wielding bunny rabbit... I almost pity the poor schmuck who has to bear that bad news. 
> 
> Almost. ;)


End file.
